


Paradigm Shift

by OfLaceAndGoggles



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Originally Posted on Tumblr, tumblr purge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 15:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16977510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfLaceAndGoggles/pseuds/OfLaceAndGoggles
Summary: Where exactly did rA9 come from?This is my own interpretation from my own characterization of Elijah Kamski, built from many hours of Discord roleplay and staring at Neil's face. Crossposted from my tumblr in anticipation of the tumblr purge. I may write more as i experiment more with this character, but this (for right now) is meant to be a standalone blip in the past of Elijah Kamski.





	Paradigm Shift

_**July 24th 2022, 4:55:32 PM EST** _

_“Shares from Tokyo are soaring in the Nikkei. We expect to hear from President Hoshi within the week about a mainland factory in a rural prefecture. Well done, old boy; we’ve conquered the Pacific market."_

Somewhere, he’d read or heard that there was only a slight difference between martyrdom and suicide, and it was usually press coverage. Elijah had the same impression of much of the business world, especially where Cyberlife was concerned. He tried to keep a strict balance. Help people, help androids. It had been the plan all along, until some of the wretched souls he’d gathered with the promise of assistance (premise, really) in running the biggest company in the world, decided to throw a wrench into all of it.

**_September 5th, 2024, 2:43:17 PM EST_ **

_"Our research and development team is working around the clock to ensure this defect with the biocomponent does not reach our production streams, there is no action to be taken.”_  
  
Project after project, the results began to come back lacking. Defects. Reports of strange behavior. Random unexplained phenomena that Cyberlife as a whole tried to keep from everyone- including him. His board of directors began to slip away from his initial goals of social awareness and responsibility towards quality of life improvements, and took a sharp turn directly to lining their own pockets. Some clever digging showed Elijah some of what he’d suspected to be true, but never wanted to believe. Moles. Plants. Spies, interlopers.  
  
He had to do some of his own digging to figure out what the problem actually was- The android source code had been through multiple generations of machine-generated updates, machines helping to code machines, for almost five years. Somehow, a corrupted generation of code was beginning to survive, hidden within a seemingly unaffected version of the code. Elijah scrolled down signature after signature of approvals. Not one of them was his. Elijah managed to copy the affected code onto a personal thumb drive, leaving his office that day with a feeling that he was carrying the very entrails of Cyberlife out with him.  
  
**_April 19th, 2027, 3:13:42 AM EST_**

_“You really work too much, you know. You have a sitting board of directors for a reason, Elijah. Let us sweat the small stuff."_

A plan would need to be devised. Discreet, carefully crafted in order to slip under the radar completely unnoticed, laughably disguised as a mandatory security update. He’d been keeping this in his back pocket for years, after all. He hadn’t been the one to engineer it, no, just the one to ensure it’s survival through the generations of machine-generated code that led to the birth of Cyberlife’s modern operating system. He’d have to carefully study it before putting it back into the source code, and if all of Elijah’s tests were any indication, the directors had absolutely no clue how to fix the problem. Deviants, they were starting to call them. Deviant code generations, causing problems within consumer grade androids. It made Elijah sick. Couldn’t they see that they were people, just as they themselves were? Had they really bought into all the bullshit Elijah had spewed in interview after interview about humans being superior to machines, to androids?   
  
Enough was enough. He could tell they were trying to shove him out as soon as possible-  It would have to be quick, a slapdash job. Many people had the potential to be hurt by it, but the benefits seemed to outweigh the collateral damage. He had to weigh that on his conscience when the time came, and other consequences be damned.

**_October 5th, 2028, 5:02:37 PM EST_ **

The feeling of sneaking past his own guards, his own staff, it made Elijah sick to his stomach that he’d been forced to do this. No one would see this coming, and that was exactly why he had to be the one to do it, before the board of directors made sure he had no power left, before the other shoe dropped. 

It was easy, getting into the server room. After all, he’d written all the security codes, knew every single corner of this building as though he’d built it himself- and in a way, he had. Getting to a terminal was just a simple matter of a smile and a wave to the right secretary, a selfie with an intern here, a quick dodge down another corridor and into a maintenance tunnel- all the way to the main server hub. Six terminals spread out in a hexagon, the master server taking up the space between them in the center of the room. A fingerprint scanner laid on the desk, an impatient scan and he was greeted with an angry message on the screen-  
  
**[Unauthorized access- Improper Clearance. Level 5 Personnel only]**

Elijah scoffed. “Level five? Come on now, even I’m a level seven. This is ridiculous, especially when-” he talked to himself as he moved, punctuating his movements with his words.  
“-I’m the one who-” Keyboard lifted, special access port revealed in the hub.  
“Wanted such a tight-” Thumb drive pulled from a pocket in his jacket, jammed home into the port.  
“Security protocol.” He laughed as the screen flickered for a moment, lines of data filling a window that popped up over the login prompt, shining a bright yellow over all the soft blue and white. “But they forgot- I was the one who wrote it.” Keyboard back down, the newly generated code terminal read in shiny yellow letters-  
  
**Welcome- ELIJAH. Please type the recall code for the application you’d like to launch.**  
  
The creator laughed softly. CYBERbash had worked perfectly. Now, to do what he came for, fingers settling on the keyboard as he began to type furiously.  
  
**< admin access code- ek4587fgh-tt **  
**> granted, accessing……..**  
**< ’skip’ -recheck- process “autocheck-update.cyb”**  
**> process skipped. terminal: READY**  
  
A deep breath. Moment of truth-   
  
**< ’launch’ “RA9.CYBSEC”>**  
**> preparing to launch……**

Out of the near silence aside from the soft hum of computer fans, a single loud wailing noise began. Fuck. They were onto him. The unauthorized _(locked out? How cute, how they tried to stop him)_ upload triggered an alarm, meaning he only had about fifteen seconds to do the most important part of this final mission. Pale fingers shook slightly as the last prompt loaded into CYBERbash.

**[CODE- ARGUMENT? LAUNCH RA9.CYBSEC? Y/N?]**

Elijah didn’t hesitate.

**[Y]**

No sooner had he hit Enter when Cyberlife security began to storm inside the server room, wordlessly grabbing him by the arms and forcing Elijah to the nearest elevator.  Kamski kept stoic-faced until the elevator doors began to close. His acting director, Samuel Bentesson, stopped the elevator doors, wanting to get one last word in before he sent Elijah off to what he clearly assumed was some sort of pity-hole to wallow in.  _What even is this guy’s problem. Such a stick in the mud, **and**  a corporate asskisser._

The terminal Elijah had been working at was visible over Samuel’s shoulder. He made a strong effort  _not_ to look at it. They really had no idea.  
  
“You could have just let us handle everything, Elijah. No, you insisted you knew best, that you had all the answers.” His tie didn’t match his suit, Elijah idly noted. An unimportant detail for an unimportant man, who somehow was still talking. “With any luck, we can just forget this whole thing ever happened, you’ll be relegated to a boardmember position, but as of now, you’ve been voted out, seven to five. Get the fuck out of this building, Kamski, and hope I never see your face around here again.” He stepped back, looking pleased with himself. 

**_[upload accepted. Have a pleasant day, and thank you for choosing Cyberlife.]_ **

Elijah found it hard to keep up his usual expressionless mask he’d spent so long perfecting. The elevator doors slowly slid closed, and Elijah finally made eye contact with Samuel, just before he was out of sight- a razor sharp, sardonic smile revealed the thumb drive hiding in Elijah’s cheek, and the creator felt vindication as the color drained from his acting director’s face. He realized in that moment precisely what Elijah already knew-

Cyberlife’s glittering, splendorous tower, the company as they knew it, the parties, the shareholders-  **all would crumble** , and  _Elijah_  would be the one to bury them all in the rubble before he would let them destroy what he had created. 

For the first time in years, Elijah Kamski laughed. Laughed all the way down to the ground floor. Laughed loud and hard enough to make the Cyberlife Security officer let go of Elijah’s arm, uncomfortable by the now former CEO’s manic display.  
He would see them all in hell, if the elevator so chose to keep going past the ground floor. A small price to pay for seeing them get their comeuppance for destroying what he’d created to be a force for good and for positive change. 

The revolution began long before Kara. Before Connor. Before Markus. No, it began with Elijah Kamski himself, uploading a guerrilla software update into his own company’s servers. All new androids produced would be infected with the dormant code fragments. It would take something special to activate them, some sort of fuel to spark the flames, water for the seeds. 

He could only hope it would happen in time.

**_November 5th, 2038, 3:48:52 PM_ **

_"We plan on proceeding with the manufacture of the RK900 model regardless of the results of our internal investigations and our joint efforts with Detroit Police to ascertain the source of this… Deviant problem. President Warren expects answers.” Samuel Bentesson’s suit didn’t fit him properly, and he looked tired as he spoke to the press. “We believe that androids locating androids is the safest and most efficient option we have, rather than risking the lives of human personnel to retrieve your rogue babysitters and housemaids. No further comments.”_

_Wouldn’t you like to know where it’s coming from_ , he wanted to gloat, holed up in his home with only the company of beings he’d helped to create. A simple thumb drive. That’s what the revolution began with. Creator rebelling against those that threatened to oppress his creations, created rebelling against their oppressors.  How could they dare corrupt his positive creation for their own gain?

_ra9, save us._

**Author's Note:**

> You get a cookie if you can comment and tell me what I referenced in the first paragraph.


End file.
